2013年8月20日火曜日

Tactile and Music

I know it's the same old excuses, but yes, life is at another turning point and things are busy. Just recently (read: last Friday), I finished my year at the Children's Entertainment program, and have started freelancing (read: 'holy cow I'm an adult now how does this work?!').

...oh, and what a crazy year it was. Sure, it had its ups and downs. A LOT of ups and downs. But when I look back and think about it, I seriously had a whole lotta fun with the best bunch of people I had the amazing privilege of becoming friends with. It was easily the best year of my life.

So, enough of me being sad and sappy. Today is another music kind of day.

I came across this music video on tumblr back in March, and fell in love with everything about it so much I was practically speechless for a good while.
Yeah, I treated myself to his CD ("In Focus?") very soon afterwards.
Shugo Tokumaru is, simply put, amazing! I don't think I fell in love this fast with a musician since... well, maybe that one time in 2010 when I had an inexplicable The Doors obsession, but that's a long story.
Anyway.
The music video is insanely awesome. Just watch. It's so cool.
But it's his music that I want to talk about today - not just this song, but all of his music.
What I fell in love with was his selection and combination of disparate sounds, and how they come together so well to create melody. And his voice, the way he lets his words flow out of his mouth... There's something inexplicably soft and fleeting yet undeniably present, like fine wool teased out and draped over your eyes. Also, sometimes, even I find it hard to decipher what the lyrics are - and I'm Japanese. But I guess it's ok, because I enjoy listening to how his voice rolls along the rest of the music in a cascading flow of sound. When I stop at times to let the lyric part sink in, it's all the more mesmerizing.

When I listen to his music, it makes me think of a river made of glass beads, wooden puzzle pieces, toys, cotton, metal cans, and a sweeping spiral staircase. All the components are distinct with individual textures, yet melding in all the right places. And it's tumbling down a waterfall in a curtain of light and dark and sound.
I also love some of his more mellow, darker songs that feels like velvet running through a forest or a mountain, with a trail of senkou hanabi (a tiny, hand-held, flickering firework) tiptoeing in its wake.
It's very tactile. Maybe that's why I love it so much.

And I have a very weird, long-winded, and unhelpful way of explaining things.
I've always struggled with "conciseness and clarity" when it comes to writing.